View blocked by trees Room reeked of smoke!

We chose this hotel for the "view from every room," and were looking forward to a PEACEFUL 3 day stay after our whirlwind visits to Rome, Florence, Milan and Pisa. We were VERY disappointed! They put us in "Superior" rooms, even though we booked standard, as that is all that was left. While the rooms were large and nice - they were on the 1st floor and had virtually NO VIEW! We looked out our balcony doors at a solid wall of trees! We expressed our dissatisfaction and were told "that is all we have, check again tomorrow!" We called in the morning, before heading out for the day, they told us to pack everything up, they would move us while we were gone into UPGRADED ROOMS WITH BETTER VIEWS. We went on a tour of the island and did not return until 3:00am, expecting to go into our UPGRADED ROOMS WITH VIEWS and we were SHOCKED and DISHEARTENED to find they had DOWNGRADED us into tiny rooms just one floor up - mine and my husband's room REEKED OF CIGARETTE SMOKE! It was so bad our kids wouldn't go inside it! And to make matters worse, they had put our kids' luggage into our reeking room - all of their clothes and suitcases stunk! They moved our kids into a room several doors down... and they were supposed to have separate beds - there was only one bed in the room! The view was slightly better, but this was an obvious downgrade! The person at the desk that night basically told us "too bad, this is all we have." When he saw how upset we were, he then showed us to the room we ORIGINALLY had, on the first floor, with no view! AND he wanted to move our kids upstairs to another room... it also only had ONE BED! We were so upset, so tired, and only had 2 days left, and now he said "wait until later and talk to the manager." We did not want to have to move a THIRD TIME in 2 days! We ended up just moving to the original room we had, and our kids kept the room they moved them to, and pushed the bed apart (it was actually just two beds pushed together. The desk person wasn't happy about having to get us separate linens for each bed, but ended up doing it, begrudgingly. The assistant manager the next day offered us NO compensation for all the hassle we went through. We asked for a refund on one room and he said "I will refund you nothing!" It was such a disappointment to be in this beautiful area, which was a FOUR HOUR DRIVE from our airport, that we chose strictly for the "view of the Mediteranean to Mt. Etna from every room!" that they promised us, only to have NO VIEW except for the bushes and trees, and to have been moved into rooms that literally REEKED of smoke, it ruined our peaceful stay. The internet was down for our entire 3 day stay and they didn't plan to have it back up "anytime soon." Also, don't expect to relax here unless you never want to leave the property, the walk up the steps into town is gruelling, and the driveway if you have a rental car is virtually hazardous as it is a hairpin turn down a steep incline! There are SO MANY BEAUTIFUL hotels nearby... with such a rude, uncaring staff, I would recommend anywhere but Monte Tauro!

Unique Quality: The free breakfast was excellent, as were the views from the breakfast room.